fP-Tech's bio-metrics

[Bill Vermillion]

On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 04:52:19PM -0400, Walter Vaughan thus spoke:
> Fairlight wrote:

> >Question here, regarding a sales blurb fP-Tech sent out: So
> >how is it they're going to support it on *nix? Anyone have any
> >idea?

> I don't know for a fact, but since fpGI runs on SCO-Unix and
> variants, I am guessing that the hooks for this are built into
> the fpGI windows clients.

> I just about coughed when I saw the price of $3995 for a single user 
> application that included the device, but it includes a copy of fpGI 
> server and a couple of GI-client licenses.

> Fingerprint readers cost less than $200, with many available
> for less than half that. However they are typically designed
> to block access to the entire PC, rather then sending the
> fingerprint signature as input to a data field.

I've talked with some fingerprint reader companies in the past -
the cheap ones that go on a PC and I was not impressed.

But then again I'm used to one place that I have a card with an
embeded encoded chip that turns on a palm reader, and then it
compares the images/data-points of the palm with those which are
encoded to match the card I use to turn on the reader.  

Needles to say the place has high security and there are live
people monitoring 24x7.

> Make it no different than using a barcode wedge to input data into 
> filepro fields.

> If I had unlimited time, I'd get me one of those parallel port finger 
> scanners, and 'speriment. I bet it's not rocket science to read the 
> parallel port even from unix.

One other method for being secure is to use the SecureID method.
For the above place if I need access to the account as the main
HW, I login with a name and password, and then am issued a
challenge that I must key in from the SecureID piece that has a 6
digit response key that changes every sixty seconds.

My impression of the cheap fingerprint devices is that they serve
to give a false sense of security.  

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com